By Perhilitan (the Malaysian Department of Wildlife and National Parks)

The Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) would like to refer to the FMT letter, ‘Perhilitan must reveal the truth on missing ivory’ by SM Mohd Idris of Sahabat Alam Malaysia. We would like to inform that all the confiscated ivory is safely kept in Government-held stockpile in government institutions. All these seized ivory are government assets and subjected to government procedure, SOPs and audit which includes storage, tagging, inventory and security of the items in placed. We adhere to CITES Resolution Conf. 9.10 (Rev. CoP15) on ‘Disposal of confiscated and accumulated specimens’ and reports pertaining to the ivory inventory will be duly reported to CITES Secretariat before Feb 28, every year. Thus, all these confiscated ivory are subjected to audit by relevant government agencies as they are all government assets. We would like to assure the public that the department will abide by CITES procedures on the disposal of the said item. Also read: Perhilitan must reveal the truth on missing ivory